Continuing his excellent play since moving into the starting five two weeks ago, Plumlee finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds, two assists, two steals and three blocks as he teamed with Joe Johnson to lead the Nets to a 102-96 come from behind victory over the Nuggets in front of 17,080 inside Barclays Center on Tuesday night.

With Brook Lopez making his return to the floor after missing eight games with a strained lower back — he finished with six points and four rebounds in eight minutes off the bench — the question of who the Nets (12-15) were going to play at center was inevitably going to come up. But with Plumlee playing the way he is — including six points, six rebounds and two game-changing blocks in the fourth quarter — there shouldn’t be much of a debate.

“I want to stay in the starting lineup, but we’re starting to have high- quality problems, which is a good way to put it,” Plumlee said. “We need that, because if you have competitions for positions, if you have problems like that, that should mean you have a good team. Instead of being like, ‘Man, we can’t play anybody.’ It’s a good thing for our team to have that competition.

“Nobody got to the NBA by not wanting to start, or not wanting to play.”

Plumlee has been playing like someone who wants to play, and play a lot, since moving into the starting lineup against the Bulls on Dec. 10. Over the past eight games he’s averaging 16.9 points, 10.3 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and shooting 62.6 percent from the floor and has racked up four double-doubles.

“Mason made a conscious decision to go and just play, and not worry about what I say, if I yell at him, if I take him out of the game … just go play,” coach Lionel Hollins said. “His confidence is rising that I haven’t seen Mason do since I’ve been here, and it’s good to see.”

Plumlee had possibly the best stretch of his pro career during the fourth quarter Tuesday, when after Darius Morris made a layup to open the quarter and give the Nets a 78-77 lead, the Nuggets (12-17) reeled off eight straight points to take the lead, the life out of the building and seemingly put the Nets on the ropes.

But that’s when Plumlee energized the crowd with a series of highlight plays, beginning with a dunk off a feed from Jarrett Jack, only to then follow it up with a massive rejection of a Jusuf Nurkic dunk attempt at the other end. He then finished a reverse layup off a pass from Johnson while being fouled by Nate Robinson, letting out a roar as the ball fell through the net to pull Brooklyn within three.

“He’s so athletic that you can put it in various spots where he can score,” said Jack, who had 17 points and eight assists filling in for Deron Williams (strained right calf) for a second straight game. “You can put it by the rim or you can put it where he would only need to take one bounce to put it up.

“All the credit to Mason … he’s done a tremendous job stepping up with guys being injured and playing really well.”

Plumlee later had another massive block, slamming an attempted Alonzo Gee layup in between the rim and the backboard for a jump ball that he later won for the Nets, as Brooklyn went on a 19-4 run — capped off by a fallaway jumper by Johnson, who had eight of his 27 points in the fourth — with 2:41 remaining that gave the Nets a 97-89 lead they’d never relinquish.

“You are just in the moment,” Plumlee said of his fourth-quarter surge. “You just feel like you’re anticipating things on defense, you’re where you’re supposed to be on offense, and things just come easy.”

With the way Plumlee’s playing right now, the only thing that won’t be easy is for Lopez to get his starting spot back.